


Orion

by plethoriall



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plethoriall/pseuds/plethoriall
Summary: They set along the path, Sid glancing at Shea every now and then, but Shea keeping his eyes forward, axe over his shoulder and hand pulling the sled. He’s never felt more out of touch with nature than in this moment, with another man’s coat keeping him warm. Like the comforts of town have softened him beyond repair.
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Shea Weber
Comments: 20
Kudos: 105





	Orion

**Author's Note:**

> Grief is mentioned but no death in the fic

He has to keep reminding himself that his toes are cold, not wet. The snows crunches underfoot and he should have put on an extra layer of socks before starting down the path into the woods, but it’s too late now. Cold_, not wet_.

The path through the snow is lightly trodden, mostly by Jack and the other forest dwellers on their comings and goings. It’s home to those that are _not too sociable_, Sully had said. Jack is one of the few he knows of that come into the village with any frequency. The rest he only sees when they require something they can’t make themselves.

It’s hard to see too well in the pallid light of winter. Sid has never been this far down the path, only going as far as the turnoff to Elmer’s Lake in the summer last year. That particular venture had resulted in a sunburn that took weeks to fade, and he can almost feel the lingering sting on his arms and neck as he walks past the sign. He hasn’t found any reason to go further until now, and Jack always came to the pub when the birds could no longer fulfill his need for interaction.

He’d been under the weather last time he stopped by in the village. There was a sheen to his skin, hollows under his eyes, and he was chugging water with his meal instead of his usual gin. He was in no condition to be making the journey through the woods, and Sid told him as much.

But Jack was quick to shut him down, ‘_a man’s gotta eat’_, and he wasn’t going to be hunting in that state. Sid offered to bring him supplies, and maybe it was a sign of how sick Jack is that he accepted – he’s fiercely independent, and perhaps the most stubborn man Sid’s ever met.

A fork in the path. _Stay right_, Jack had told him. Had made Sid repeat it back to him twice before the tension left his body again. But the split is more of a trident, and the path right is the faintest trod of all. He hesitates. _Stay right_, but his gut is telling him the way he’s looking hadn’t even entered Jack’s thoughts when he gave him the directions.

He keeps scanning the trees for a pair of glowing yellow eyes. He’s heard the tales from the other villagers ever since he moved here. They say there’s a beast in these woods, a wolf who craves human skin above that of any other creature. One wrong turn on the path and it’ll take you to its lair.

Or at least that’s what Max had told him, unable to keep the dramatics out of his voice after one beer too many. The only place this wolf seemed to be mentioned was in the pub, now Sid thinks of it. But it does little to quell his paranoia.

He’s been tending bar at the village pub for the last two years, where it’s bustling during the day and stiller than a sunken ship at night. When he first got here, he felt like it was too quiet. Eerie.

But he’s grown to love the area, quirks and all, even if it is a work in progress sometimes.

The village is surrounded by a scattering of farms along the coastline, and even an apiary run by his good friend Pascal. The woods stretch inland from the edge of the village, and the whole thing would make a beautiful postcard, if more people knew it existed.

Sid’s just starting to think Jack was absolutely lying when he said it wasn’t far from the fork in the path, when he spots something in the distance.

He stops in his tracks.

There’s a man emerging onto the path ahead, axe in one hand and a sled full of wood dragged by the other.

He thought he’d seen everyone who lives in the forest at one time or another, but he feels he would remember him. He’s tall, bearded, and holding his shoulders back like the cold doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

The man freezes in place when he spots Sid, like an odd, too cold for comfort stand-off.

“Are you lost?” the man calls out to him. Sid hesitates, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t like to shout at strangers and doesn’t really want to walk toward one either, but the man is already heading toward him, leaving his sled in the tree line.

When he’s close enough that Sid can see the face beneath the beard, the man says, “You’re lost.” His eyes are dark and calculating, but there’s a warmth to them. Or Sid hopes there is.

“How do you know I’m lost?” he asks, because the last one hadn’t been a question.

“This is a dead end, and I’m guessing it’s not my door you’re looking for.”

Sid grimaces. He knew he should have ignored the faint path. “I’m on my way to visit a friend. He told me to stay right.”

The man nods. “It’s an easy mistake.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” Sid says, and he definitely hasn’t. Up close there’s no doubt he would remember those eyes, the muscle he’s almost certain is hiding beneath his winter coat. If he came into the pub, he’s exactly the kind of person Sid would sneakily eye while filling drink orders.

“I don’t really venture out of the woods much. My name’s Shea, by the way.” He holds out his hand and Sid shakes it the best he can when they’re both wearing thick gloves.

“Sid. I live in the village,” he explains.

“Well Sid from the village, perhaps you’d like to warm up by the fire at my cabin? Since you’re almost there anyway.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I need to get these to my friend,” Sid says and holds up the basket. It’s partially true – he said he’d bring Jack the supplies but it’s not _urgent_.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Jack Johnson, do you know him?”

Shea looks thoughtful. “Blonde fellow?”

“That’s him.”

“Haven’t really had many dealings with him, to tell you the truth. I know he lives up by Creeder’s Pond, so you really did go too far. Are you sure you won’t come warm up at my cabin?” Shea says and Sid doesn’t think he’s imagining the friendliness in his tone. And he feels his resolve crumbling, looking into Shea’s brown eyes. There’s no telling if he’ll ever run into him again.

“Okay,” he says. Jack will have to wait a little longer for his supplies.

Shea smiles and Sid’s reassured to see it fits the warmth of his eyes. He watches as Shea pulls at the sleeves of his coat, and before he can protest, he’s draping it around Sid’s shoulders.

“The cabin’s close but you look freezing,” Shea says, “Can’t have you being cold.”

“Thanks,” Sid says, and feels his cheeks are already gaining a heat that he hopes Shea doesn’t notice. It’s cold enough out that he’s sure the little heat he’s getting from the coat is outweighed by how much colder Shea must be, but he doesn’t say anything. He _has_ a better coat back at the pub, but Jack said it wasn’t far, and, well. There’s no changing it now.

They set along the path, Sid glancing at Shea every now and then, but Shea keeping his eyes forward, axe over his shoulder and hand pulling the sled. He’s never felt more out of touch with nature than in this moment, with another man’s coat keeping him warm. Like the comforts of town have softened him beyond repair. 

After they’re silent for a while, Sid tries to strike up conversation.

“You ran out of firewood?” he asks, gesturing at the sled. It’s kind of awkward, but Sid has long since come to accept that most of his interactions outside of the pub fall into that category.

“No, I have all my firewood taken care of months ago.” Shea looks at Sid like he suspects he might not have _his_ firewood taken care of. Sid buries his rebuttal before it can begin to form. “This lot’s for carving, this time of year can get pretty dull.”

“You cut down a whole tree for carving?”

“No, I look for ones that are already down,” Shea says with a tone of amusement, “I have to do some cutting to get what I want to use on the sled.”

“That makes sense,” Sid says, as if he has any knowledge whatsoever of woodsmanship. Shea doesn’t looked fooled.

“It’s just you? In your cabin, I mean,” Sid says, eager to move away from the topic before his lack of knowledge can embarrass him further.

“Just me.”

The fall into silence once more for the remainder of the walk. But Shea hadn’t been lying – it’s not long before they’re entering a clearing.

The cabin looks solid, not blackened by mold or mildew, and a lot of effort has obviously been made to take care of the place. Shea sets the axe to lean against the doorframe before beckoning Sid inside.

It’s standard for most places around here - there’s a kitchenette to one wall, a fireplace to another, and doorways leading into what he’s guessing are the bathroom and bedroom.

The things that draw Sid’s attention are the personal touches – a noticeboard by the eastward window with half a dozen letters pinned to it, the bookcase Sid desperately wants to take a closer look at. The ceiling that’s low enough that Shea only has inches to spare from grazing his head.

“Did you build this place?”

“I did,” Shea says gruffly, pulling his boots off and placing them heavily by the door. Sid hurries to do the same, to prove he didn’t leave his good manners back in the village. He’s pleased to see his socks are indeed dry, but that doesn’t change the numbness in his toes. When he turns around Shea is stocking the fireplace with kindling and newspaper.

“Grab a blanket and cozy up,” he says without turning around.

Sid grabs a blanket off the back of the couch, pulls it around his shoulders before sinking into the seat cushions. He would usually wait to see how the host sits before pulling his legs under him, but his feet are cold enough that he lays waste to his own etiquette system. His socks are clean, he won’t leave any dirt.

Shea gets the fire started by the time Sid’s feet have begun to throb and feel twice as warm as the rest of him. He joins him on the couch but doesn’t feel the need to create a blanket cocoon like Sid, and they both pass a few minutes staring into the fire. Sid feels a wave of sleepiness poking at his limbs from the heat, and it feels so fitting when Shea’s deep, warm voice drifts in from beside him.

“You want some soup?”

Usually he would decline, already taking up too much kindness from a stranger.

“That sounds great, actually,” he finds himself saying instead. “You need any help?”

“No, it’s just reheating on the stove. You focus on getting warm.”

Sid tips his head back against the couch, listens to the crackle as the fire takes hold of the larger logs. Focusing feels a lot like dozing off. It’s like no time has passed before Shea is passing him a bowl and sinking back down beside him. With the blanket around him and the bowl of soup in his hands, he can’t fight the nostalgia creeping in. He hasn’t had someone take care of him like this in years.

“Are you this nice to everyone who gets lost in the woods?”

“No, but then again it’s rare someone comes down this way. You looked particularly helpless.”

“I wouldn’t say I was _helpless_. I would have figured out I took the wrong path eventually,” Sid protests.

“You would have, but you’d also have been half frozen by the time you made it back toward Creeder’s. That coat is doing you no favors.”

Sid hasn’t spent enough time outdoors to truly appreciate what the cold can do to you, but he’s heard tales of blackened limbs and people throwing off their clothes in some kind of hypothermia-induced insanity. He’d been out long enough to feel uncomfortable, sure, but still nowhere near the point where his survival was in question.

But Shea was kind enough to lead him somewhere warm, and feed him to boot, so he won’t continue debating whether he was _helpless_.

“This is so good,” Sid manages between mouthfuls of soup.

“It’s a shame you didn’t wander my way this morning, you could’ve had pancakes. I make them with cinnamon and top them with honey.”

Sid feels a twinge of regret he didn’t. He’s gotten in the bad habit of relying on a slice of toast to see him through to lunch. Pancakes sound like heaven. And if Shea had honey, then maybe-

“You know Pascal?”

“Duper? I’ve known him practically my whole life. His dad and my dad used to work on the trawlers together.” Shea’s eyebrows furrow a little like most of the villagers do when they mention the fish trade.

It may be years since they lost the majority of it, but the loss of a way of life leaves deep wounds. Sid sees it every day on the wall of the pub dedicated to the _good old days_, hung with black and white photographs and even the wheel of one ship which he suspects is from generations before the fishers went out of business.

“What brought you to Lanrowe? You’re not local.”

“I’ve been local for the last two years,” Sid says indignantly. The corner of Shea’s mouth twitches.

“Okay, before that then.”

Sid bites his lip. He’s not sure how detailed he wants to get with someone who is a stranger, even if he’s friends with Pascal. Eventually he hopes to sever all ties with that place, and speaking its name feels like blowing on the embers.

“Belhaven.”

“That explains the coat,” Shea says with a grin that Sid can’t help finding himself charmed by, even if he’s implying he’s clueless because of his town upbringing. “What brings a city boy out this way?”

Belhaven is hardly a city, only marginally bigger than the town down the coast that monopolized the fish trade. But if Shea has spent his entire life in and around the village, it may very well be what the word _city_ invokes in his mind.

Sid shrugs. He can afford to be vague on that part. “I just needed to get away.”

“I can respect that. I don’t live this deep in the woods for nothing.”

“Why _are_ you this far out?” Sid figures if Shea asked him his _why_, he can ask too. Shea looks at him like he’s calculating something.

“I’ve never liked crowds of people.”

_Fair enough_, Sid thinks. He’s never been a big fan himself. But there’s a difference between that and living entirely alone, avoiding others to live deep in the woods. He has to remind himself that Shea is unlikely to open up more to him, and he shouldn’t pry into his personal affairs.

Sid insists on washing up the dishes since there’s only so far he’s willing to take someone’s hospitality, even if it means leaving the blanket cocoon.

“You’re built like you could live in the forest,” Shea comments as he does.

Sid narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shea holds his hands up. “I mean it as a compliment. You’re well built. Solid. Could haul a decent amount of firewood.”

“That tends to happen when you spend all day hauling kegs around,” Sid mumbles, but is relieved that Shea wasn’t implying he looked feral. It’s still going in the top five of odd compliments he’s received, right under ‘_You look like my cousin. He died’_.

“You ever get bored of it, you can come chop wood with me.”

Sid makes a considering noise. “Next time we do a half price drinks night, I might take you up on that.”

They sit around for a bit, Sid keeping an eye on whether he’s close to wearing out his welcome – the talk flows well between them and he doesn’t detect any awkwardness. Shea asks him about life in the city, and Sid provides some evasive answers. Sid asks him about life in the forest in turn, and gets far more detailed responses than he was expecting. Shea obviously has a deep passion for nature.

“Can I look around?” Sid asks after a while, because he has a nosiness streak that’s unparalleled and he’s been dying to look around since the second he warmed up.

“Of course.”

He inspects the bookcase first, discovers a lot of books that are painfully useful – there’s ones on carpentry, some local history, but nothing he could imagine being a relaxing read.

Shea must notice his frown. “Don’t like what you see?”

“I was just expecting more fiction. Like _Huckleberry Finn_, or something.”

“Hucklebuddy what?”

“Huckleberry Fi- Oh, very funny,” Sid says upon realizing Shea has a twitchy smile on his face, and he’s making fun of him. It’s a good thing he’s so used to teasing from the pub.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. I have a few novels on the bottom shelf.”

Sid bends down to look and hears a deep inhale behind him. He hides his smile – that’s another thing he’s used to from the pub. At least Shea is polite enough to not make a comment as he looks at two whole novels on the shelf, nestled at the end right after a book on rock formations.

“You need variety,” Sid says as he straightens back up.

“I have variety, did you see how many books are on those shelves?”

“I meant variety in having some fiction there, too.”

“I don’t really see much point in it,” Shea says.

“Fiction is like-“ Sid pauses and wonders how to phrase himself, “an escape.”

“Living in the woods isn’t enough of an escape?”

Sid frowns. “You got me there.”

Shea seems like one of those people that are self-aware enough that Sid’s a little unnerved by them. He glances around to find another outlet for his nosiness. There’s a display cabinet closer to the kitchenette, which he discovers to contain mostly carved wooden boxes.

“You can open the cabinet, if you want.” Shea’s lingering a few steps behind him like he’s not sure how close would be appropriate.

“Did you make these? They’re beautiful.”

It’s the first time he’s seen Shea’s face fully light up. He strikes Sid as the kind that takes pride in their work. He comes closer, until he’s shoulder to shoulder with Sid and looking at the collection.

“I did. That one probably took me the longest.” Shea points at one to the left, the work on the lid so intricate he’s almost scared to touch it. He lets a finger gently run over the petal formations, imagines how it must be to have this level of patience.

“Hey, would you be interested in selling some of these? We have a nook at the pub where we already sell local goods. You’d probably make a killing.”

Shea frowns a little and Sid wonders if he’s said the wrong thing.

“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

Sid changes the subject when he spots an old map hanging on the wall, similar enough to the ones they have in the pub as part of the _local history _display, but with some key differences. This one has what appears to be a giant crab penciled in along the coastline, along with a troll further inland.

There’s all kinds of odd creatures hidden among the towns and villages. He gets lost discussing the local folklore with Shea, until he notices that the light from the windows is beginning to wane.

“I better get going, poor Jack needs his supplies,” Sid says, and knows _poor Jack_ is also going to have to deal with him sleeping on his couch, since he won’t be able to navigate the forest in the dark. It’s a good thing it’s his off day from the pub, or he’d have to try anyway.

Shea frowns. “Are you sure you’re alright to go on your own?”

“Can’t really mess up more than I did the first time,” Sid assures him, but the expression on Shea’s face doesn’t change.

“Well, follow the path back this way some other time, maybe you can try those pancakes. Just wear a better coat.”

-

They strike up a tentative friendship after that, with Sid thinking of any excuse he can to head down the trail toward Shea’s cabin, from getting his opinion on a storm aimed their way to identifying a leaf he found (he was really pushing it with that one). Eventually he stops looking for a reason and just shows up. Shea always greets him like he’d been expecting him, folds him seamlessly into whatever activity he’s into for the day.

Sometimes he goes into the woods with Shea under the guise of finding wood for carving, which usually involves Shea trying to teach him how to conduct himself in nature. He swears he learned some of this as a child, but it’s vague in his memory. And when Shea asks him what he would do if he came face to face with a baby bear and he answers ‘pick it up’, he’s obviously joking despite the visible horror on Shea’s face.

They’re traipsing back to the cabin through the snow, Sid’s face half buried under the layers of his scarf, when Shea’s arm comes out to stop him.

There’s a wolf up ahead, its fur scraggly and gray. Its eyes are fixed on them, and in an instant, Sid feels like the smallest being on earth. A fragile bag of flesh and bone, low on the food pyramid.

“Keep facing it,” Shea says, like Sid could do anything else. He’s rooted to the spot. 

“Should we make noise?”

“Not yet.”

They keep staring while the wolf watches them, and Sid’s heart is hammering in his chest, all feelings of being cold forgotten. Finally, the wolf turns and disappears into the trees.

“Let’s go,” Shea says and puts his hand on Sid’s lower back to nudge him along.

“Is it safe?” Sid says hesitantly.

“Wolves don’t go hungry in this area, so it’s not interested in us unless we’re aggressive, or act like prey,” Shea says, but his tone is still hushed.

“I’ve never seen one in the wild before. It was bigger than I expected.” He’s not sure what he had imagined – maybe something more akin to a husky than anything else. There are goosebumps on his skin that have nothing to do with the flakes of snow gathering in his hair.

He looks over his shoulder every few steps, half expecting to see the wolf sprinting towards them, feet fast and silent in the snow. Shea must notice his apprehension, because he settles an arm around him as they walk. It makes their forward progress more awkward, but it forces him to look ahead.

“They keep telling a story about a giant wolf in the pub,” Sid mumbles.

“I’ve heard that story,” Shea says with a note of amusement, “yellow eyes and can eat a man in one gulp, right?”

“I mean, I heard about the yellow eyes but I didn’t hear about that last bit. They just said it only eats people.”

“That tale’s been going around so long, if it ever did exist it’s either long dead or undead.”

Sid bites his lip. He knows Shea is trying to reassure him, but now the story just gained an _undead_ layer.

“You know it’s on that map you like so much on my wall?”

“Really?” Sid frowns – is he really so absent-minded he wouldn’t notice a monstrous wolf illustration among the trolls and witches?

“It is. I’ll show you when we get in.”

When they get inside the cabin, Sid barely has time to get his boots and outer layer off before Shea’s ushering him over to the map.

“I don’t see it,” Sid says after a while of scanning.

Shea plants a finger on the paper, and Sid gets as close as he dares – a childhood full of ‘hilarious pranks’ means he’s half expecting Shea to push his face into the map. There’s the forest drawn in around Lanrowe, but what Shea’s pointing to is the tree line. Sure enough, there are a pair of eyes, ears, and a pointed snout peering from one of the tree trunks. Hardly the monster from Sid’s nightmares.

“Huh,” Sid says quietly, “how old is the map?”

“Old,” Shea says with a shrug, “like I said, that stories been going around for a while.”

“How do you know it’s not just a normal wolf drawn on there?”

“What wolf do you know of that’s half as tall as a forest? Plus the only animals that get drawn on here are the mythical ones.”

Sid hadn’t really paid attention to scale, more preoccupied by how the wolf looked more like a dog, really, and nowhere near as intimidating as what they just saw in the woods.

He’s a little more paranoid for the next few visits he makes to Shea’s cabin, but he powers through it and forces himself to stop walking with his head swiveling from side to side, scanning the trees. He’s bound to trip over a tree root at some point if he keeps that up.

The path to the right is starting to look as well worn as the others, something Jack pointed out to him at the pub one night without knowing he was the one taking that fork so frequently. He’d blushed, and he wasn’t sure why. He visits plenty of people, Shea’s no different from them and nothing to be ashamed of. Still, the next visit he can’t help bringing up something that’s nagging at him.

“How come you never come into town?” Sid asks, and tries to keep his voice neutral. He succeeds for the most part, or at least there’s no hint of the _whininess_ Marc-André accuses him of when he makes him taste-test the soup of the day. There’s only so much minestrone a man can handle, after all.

“I have everything I need right here,” Shea says, not looking up from where he’s carving away.

Sid clenches his jaw for a second and then releases the tension. “You could stop by the pub sometime. The menu changed again recently.”

Shea smiles in a way that lets Sid know he couldn’t be more obvious. “Do you want me to come visit you?”

“I mean, how else will I show you my amazing barkeeping skills? I can pour two bottles at once and everything.” He’s never actually needed to do that, but still.

The side of Shea’s lip twitches. “Yeah, maybe I’ll swing by some time. Can’t miss that, right?”

Sid forgets the offer for weeks, and when it does pop into his head, he assumes it won’t happen. Shea is the definition of a homebody, and the forest is pretty much just an extension of his cabin.

Then one evening Sid’s got his head under the bar, rifling through boxes for the spare drink coasters when he hears the bell above the door chime. He huffs in annoyance – another patron right now makes finding the coasters even more urgent. He’s got no clue who keeps taking them, but if it continues, he might have to start playing detective on top of everything else.

“Weber,” he hears John call to whoever just walked in, “haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Tavares. You know me. Keep to myself,” says a very familiar voice.

Sid hits his head into the bar with an audible thud.

“You okay down there, Sid?” John calls.

“Yeah,” he says in a strained voice, “just one sec.”

He takes a second to compose himself before getting up from under the bar and walking to the end where Shea is leaning against it.

“I didn’t know your name was Weber,” Sid says at once.

“People tend to have last names. I don’t know yours either,” Shea says.

“Crosby. My first name’s supposed to be Sidney, since we’re on the subject. Is Shea short for Sheabstian or what else are you hiding from me?”

“Sheabastian. You’re strange.” Shea chuckles and Sid has to remind himself that he’s at work. He can’t stand around staring when Ryan’s at the other end of the bar, looking more and more irritated at the emptiness of his glass.

“What are you drinking, Sheabastian?”

“Whatever you recommend, Sidney.” Shea slides a note across the bar toward him, and he immediately slides it back.

“First one’s on the house.” He’s not sure of Shea’s taste, but he’s always liked the ale from two towns over. He hates the guy that runs the brewery, but he can’t hate the product. He pours it up and glances up to make sure Shea is watching him hold the glass at an angle – it’s a little thing, but he’d done it wrong for the longest time until Sully pointed out there was an easy way to control the foam buildup.

“Very impressive,” Shea says when he hands it over, and Sid knows he’s not imagining the amusement in his voice.

“You should have seen me when I started,” Sid mumbles. He’s glad Shea didn’t.

“Sid,” Ryan shouts from the other end of the bar and Sid rolls his eyes before heading that way. The nerve of him making him do his job.

It’s a busy night for him, but he keeps an eye on how Shea’s doing whenever he can. He’s moved to a table with John at some point, and he doesn’t look uncomfortable. It’s odd for him, to see Shea in a place that’s so lively. Like he should only ever be surrounded by rock and moss, an axe in one hand and snow in his beard. But seeing him laughing and at ease in the pub looks like it could be natural for him too.

He’s just finished cleaning up a broken glass when Ryan calls him over and wraps an arm around his waist. Sid’s used to people getting handsy when drunk, but Ryan is handsy even when sober. It just amplifies once he has a few beers in him. He grits his teeth and pretends to listen to what he has to say about why they shouldn’t sell imported beer, but his attention is drawn over to other side of the pub.

Shea is staring directly at him, clenched jaw and an unreadable expression.

He waits for Ryan to finish his monologue, tries to nod in the right places and not look too annoyed. But the second he sees someone get up from near the windows, he seizes his opportunity.

“Empty table. Gotta go clear it,” Sid insists, gesturing toward the beer bottles and disentangling himself from Ryan’s arm before he can do more than frown.

The next time Sid makes it back to the bar with an armful of empties, Shea comes up for a refill within a minute.

“Do you need me to talk with him?” he says, low and just for Sid’s ears.

“Who?”

“The guy with his hands all over you,” Shea says and his eyes are burning.

“Oh, that. Shea, it’s really no big deal. It happens all the time.”

“It shouldn’t happen.”

“You’re right, it shouldn’t. But it does, and I deal with it,” Sid says simply. If anyone truly crosses a line with him, he puts them in their place quickly, or one of the other patrons does it for him. In those instances it’s almost always a visitor to the village – the locals know they can’t escape that kind of reputation.

Shea shakes his head and looks like he has more to say, but Sid slides another glass of beer across the bar to him.

“Go sit with John again,” he says, and turns to make his way to the cellar before Shea can respond. The last thing he needs is Shea having a word with Ryan, or drawing him into a discussion on whether he should accept harassment. He knows he shouldn’t, but life isn’t perfect.

He stands in the cellar for a few minutes, staring at the kegs and collecting himself. There’s no need for another one upstairs, and he hadn’t really had a reason for coming down here other than _avoid discussion_. He lingers for as long as he needs for it to be plausible that he was doing something productive before heading back up the dusty steps and into the noise.

Shea approaches the bar again.

“I’m heading out, thanks for the drinks.”

“So soon?” Sid says and can’t quite manage to keep the disappointment out of his voice. The night hasn’t panned out at all how he’d hoped, when he heard Shea’s voice from under the bar.

“Got to see your excellent barkeep skills, had a talk with an old buddy. Good time to call it quits.”

Shea smiles in a way that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, slides a couple of notes across the bar to him, and is leaving before Sid can gather his thoughts enough to respond.

“_Sid_,” Ryan is calling again.

“Coming,” Sid calls back, but it’s another second before he can tear his eyes away from the door.

-

He’s just reached the clearing of Shea’s cabin when a voice greets him.

“You have good timing, I was just about to head over to Duper’s. Got a load of firewood for him.”

Shea’s standing outside with two sleds full of firewood packed up and ready to go, tethers around both hands.

“What was it you once told me about being prepared for winter?” Sid asks, unable to resist.

“Nice try. I supply his firewood over the winter and in exchange he gives me as much honey as I want, year round. Pretty good deal,” Shea says, and Sid has to agree.

“Amazing deal, for that honey. I’d be having it with everything,”

“I’m not one to take advantage of a good thing. Speaking of, want to tag along? I could use an extra set of hands.” Shea gestures toward the two sleds. No wonder Shea has the arms he does if he’s been hauling both at once all winter.

“Tricking me into work, eh?”

“It’s not a keg, but maybe you can figure it out,” Shea says with the grin Sid’s been seeing more and more lately. He may have created a monster.

“Oh, ha ha,” Sid mumbles as he wraps the rope tether around his hand. It seems like there’s either a conspiracy in the village about teasing him, or everyone’s arriving at it naturally. He’s not sure which is worse.

He’s starting to regret coming along by the time they’re halfway to Pascal’s apiary. Pulling the sled was fine for the first while, but then his arms got sore, no matter how much he alternated which arm he was using to pull. To add insult, he got to watch Shea effortlessly pull his sled along like it was full of feathers.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to pull both?” Shea had asked him, and Sid had grumbled some reply he can’t remember, but had prioritized his pride over his aching arms and shoulders. It doesn’t help it’s cold enough that his fingers and face went numb long ago.

The apiary is nestled south of the village, with the sea only a stone’s throw away. It’s one of his favorite places to visit in the summer, and some of his best memories are sitting out front with the Dupuis family, swatting away the bugs while they eat.

“I would never have figured you two to be acquaintances,” Pascal says when he opens the door, looking between them both like he’s put oil and water together and got jam.

“Can we marvel at our acquaintance inside? It’s freezing.” Sid clutches his arms closer to his body in illustration.

“Of course, in you go and warm up.”

They pull off their outside gear in the hallway, then tread in socks toward the stone tiles of the kitchen. There’s a fire going off to the side and Carole-Lyne is pulling on a coat beside it.

“Bad timing, boys. If you got here a few hours ago I could have made more pie, but as it is all of this is going to Gwen,” she says as she lifts a box off the table. 

“I’ve been doing that a bunch recently,” Sid grumbles, but it’s short lived because he’s just spotted the bassinet in the corner.

“I just put him down for a nap,” Carole-Lyne warns, but Sid is already inching closer to peek at the most recent addition to the Dupuis family. Evan is four months old, has pink, chubby cheeks, and Sid dies inside a little every time he sees him.

“He’s grown,” Sid says in a hushed voice, noting the way there’s now socked feet close to the end of the bassinet, far closer than they had been last time he visited.

“They tend to do that,” Pascal says from over by Carole-Lyne. He kisses her cheek on her way out, but Sid’s too distracted to offer more than an absent-minded goodbye.

Once Pascal tears Sid away from looking at the baby and they’ve taken seats in the breakfast nook and set the teapot down, he fixes Sid with a look that never means anything good.

“You in a better mood today?”

“What? Oh, you can’t keep bringing that up,” Sid says with a frown.

“What’s this?” Shea asks.

“Turns out Sid gets real grumpy in the mornings without coffee. I stopped by to drop him off a jar of honey and he swore like a sailor at me, called me some very rude names. No gratitude,” Pascal says with a tut, and Sid might murder him.

“I was asleep after serving drinks until two in the morning and you woke me up by yelling _Sid_ in my face,” he protests.

Shea grins at Pascal. “No gratitude at all. Typical of city folk.”

“Yeah, you guys are hilarious, a real comedy duo” Sid grumbles as he sticks an extra teaspoon of sugar into his tea to counteract the blatant ganging-up they’re doing on him.

“So have you two heard about the work they’re doing down the coast?”

And Pascal and Shea are off onto the well-worn tracks of a conversation he hears all the time in the pub. Some variation of change being bad. He stays silent – he thought the renovation of the pier sounded like a good thing, but his opinion as someone from the ‘city’ is considered tainted.

He tunes out other than offering a noise of outrage at appropriate times, right until Evan starts crying. Sid’s up like a bolt toward the bassinet, both happy for an excuse to get away from that conversation and to spend more time with the baby.

“He doesn’t need to be changed. Is he hungry?” Sid asks Pascal after a minute.

“He got fed right before Carole-Lyn left,” Pascal says, “he’s just being fussy. He hates it when she leaves.”

Sid makes a thoughtful noise and picks Evan up. There was an age gap between him and his sister that meant he spent part of his childhood comforting a crying baby – it’s not something he thought he would miss, at the time.

He settles into the reclining armchair closer to the fireplace and loses himself in the warmth of the kitchen, the feeling of holding Evan to his chest. His eyes are shut but he doesn’t fall asleep, just enjoys the murmur of talk around him.

It’s interesting to hear the little differences in the way Shea talks to Pascal, compared to him. It’s less soft, but not as teasing. Shea loves teasing him but he doesn’t seem to do it as much with Pascal.

“How’ve you been doing?” Pascal asks, in a tone that Sid hasn’t heard in his voice before. It’s the tone you use when someone’s been sick and you’re not quite sure if they’re over it. It gives Sid a bad feeling, makes him wish the armchair was further away so that he can’t hear their conversation. Now he has to maintain the allusion of sleep lest he create yet another awkward moment to keep him awake at night.

“You know, up and down. The usual,” Shea says in a way which Sid has learnt means he wants to change the subject as quick as possible.

“You seem happier than last time. It’s a good thing, Shea,” Pascal says softly.

“I s’pose.”

“Have you thought anymore about selling the house? Or moving back int-“

“No, I’m not thinking about any of that,” Shea interrupts.

There’s a beat of silence before Pascal speaks again.

“I’m not trying to push you.”

“I know. I’m trying to get to that point, but it’s.. Slow going.”

“Understandable. Let me know if you need anything. Other than for me to shut up.”

Shea finally manages to change the subject and Sid is relieved on his behalf. There’s an icy feeling in his chest when he thinks about what exactly they’d been alluding to – he has his suspicions, but he shouldn’t pry.

“So how did you two meet?” Pascal asks Shea after a while.

“Out in the woods. He was bringing food to a friend, we got talking.”

Sid feels grateful that Shea didn’t mention the whole getting lost aspect. Pascal would never leave it alone, and he’d tell Marc-André, who is even less likely to leave it alone.

“Like I said, I wouldn’t have guessed. But I’m pleased for you. I think it’s probably good for both of you.”

Sid wants to roll his eyes beneath his eyelids. Pascal treated Sid like his own project when he first ended up there, introducing him to key people around the village and going out of his way to make him feel at home. He owes Pascal a debt of gratitude, but he’s never fully escaped the _project_ feel to their friendship.

“Are you keeping busy?” Shea asks.

“Tough to keep busy as a beekeeper in winter. Thankfully I have a newborn and a brood of unruly children to fill the time.”

“You love it, though.”

“I do,” Pascal admits, and then he’s off on a tangent about the strangeness of some of the books his oldest brings home from school.

Shea is quieter on their way back from the apiary, like his mind is somewhere else and his body is on autopilot. Sid trudges along beside him, throwing in the occasional attempt at conversation but otherwise keeping quiet too.

He doesn’t mention any of what he heard, since he feels guilty about hearing it in the first place. His punishment is fitting – he’s so curious to know more, and his curiosity won’t be satisfied unless Shea decides to share it.

They part ways at the turn for the village, each with their head in their own clouds.

-

He’s wiping down the bar when Sully takes a seat opposite, Sid giving him the side-eye to make sure he doesn’t put his elbows down on the surface. It’s not good etiquette to scold your boss, but he’s been cleaning for the last hour and his back is sore.

“You know, Sidney, I was thinking the other day about when I was your age.”

_Oh no._

“You’re getting to the time where you probably want to look at settling down. You’ve made yourself at home here, and the locals have let you right into the fold. Maybe it’s time to put down some roots? You know if you’re interested, Hannah’s still single.”

“I’m pretty happy with the way things are, but I’ll let you know if that changes,” Sid replies on autopilot. Sully’s been trying to set him up with his cousin’s daughter since the moment he hired him, and Sid’s been hoping she’ll start dating someone else just so Sully will leave him alone. He suspects even that wouldn’t be the end of it - everyone around him seems to believe his being single is involuntary. Which perhaps it is, but not for the reasons they imagine.

That night the walls of the room over the pub feel like they’re closing in on him, the way they always do after someone suggests they should. He sits up in bed, leaning his head on his arms in the windowsill as he watches the little street outside. It’s drizzling, and he can barely make out the trees in the distance from the glow of the streetlights.

He is both fortunate and alone.

The pub keeps him occupied most of the nights, and he has enough people in and around the village he can visit during the day. Coming home to an empty room isn’t the end of the world. He’ll never forget how much of a blessing it felt like when he first arrived. A space that was his own.

It’s only when he sees the newly-in-love couples wandering around, or the feeling of cold sheets after a tough day, that he really feels the absence of something other than friendship in his life. And when he’s trying to sleep at night and thoughts of the future won’t leave him be, he can’t think of a way that figures in.

-

“What’s that?” Shea gestures toward the container and Sid should have known he wouldn’t get inside before Shea homed in on it.

“I brought you some soup. The kitchen’s trying out some new recipes before adding them to the menu, thought this one might be your style.”

“Well, it smells good.”

“How can you smell it? It’s a sealed container,” Sid points out.

“Maybe it’s you I’m smelling,” Shea says and Sid knows he’s in a teasing mood.

“I definitely don’t smell good, I’ve been in the cellar doing inventory.”

“Does the cellar smell like soup too?”

“What kind of soup have you been eating that smells like a cellar, is what I want to know.” Sid shakes his head and walks past him into the cabin, wiggling his boots off by the door. He grabs a saucepan and sets about warming up the soup that definitely doesn’t smell like kegs and dust. It’s a winter vegetable _medley_, according to Marc-André, and if he caught wind of Shea’s comments he might storm up to the cabin himself.

“Now tell me this isn’t good,” Sid says as he deposits himself by Shea on the couch, passing over one of the bowls and spoons. They’re quiet for a bit beyond obnoxious slurping sounds, a sure sign of victory.

“You’re right, this is really good,” Shea says, moving his mouth in a way which makes Sid suspicious that he’s burnt his tongue.

“Marc-André will be pleased.”

“That’s the cook?”

“He prefers the title chef, but yes.” Sid frowns a little. He’d thought that since Shea knew Pascal, he’d know Marc-André. For some reason he keeps assuming Shea knows everyone from the village, one way or another.

“Tell him he did a good job. You add that to the menu and I might pop in again myself.”

“Just for the soup, eh?”

“Soup and a view,” Shea says with a grin and Sid’s heart skips a beat.

Sid has to remind himself that Shea probably isn’t flirting with him, even if it feels like it. Even if he wishes he were. He’s hit the point of realization that his feelings toward Shea have moved a couple of paces too far, past the point of friendship or mere attraction. It’s hard to rein in the hopeful part of him, when Shea makes comments like that.

“What were you up to before I so rudely interrupted?”

“Sorting through some old boxes. Starting to run out of space and I figured I’d try decluttering before considering building an extension.”

Sid shakes his head at the thought of casually building an extension. He’s heard stories of Sully reaching the edge of sanity when they were building the annex onto the pub.

“If I offer to help, do you promise nothing’s going to jump out at me?”

“What would jump out at you?”

Sid frowns. Not everyone is as mischievous as Marc-André. “Never mind.”

Shea shows him the boxes he’s emptying and Sid starts shamelessly leafing through their contents. Shea glances over when he grabs the one off to the side.

“Pretty much everything in that box is staying in the box,” Shea says, but Sid is undeterred.

He opens it up and sifts through childhood drawings, a collection of postcards, and finally, toward the bottom, finds yet another carved wooden box.

“How come this one isn’t with the others?

“I didn’t carve that one,” Shea says quietly.

“Do you use it as inspiration then? It’s kind of similar to the ones you carve.”

“You could say that. My dad carved it.”

He looks back at the wooden box, suddenly wary of how he’s been handling it. There should be a warning that it’s a family heirloom, a cordoning of some kind. Then again, the fact it’s inside another box might have been one.

He’s skimmed around the subject of families with Shea for months. It’s a sore subject for him, and he suspects it’s the same for Shea. But the comfort levels between them have grown steadily, to the point where there are things he wants to know that require poking things that might prefer to be left alone.

“Are you close with your family?” he tries.

“I was.” Shea doesn’t meet his eyes and continues, “my mother died when I was young, and my dad a few years ago.”

Sid bites his lip. He’d wondered, obviously, but the idea that his parents were _gone_ hadn’t occurred to him. There’s a dark little part of his brain that had hoped he was in a similar situation to the one Sid’s in, that they could commiserate together. He’d felt guilty when the thought first popped into his head, and he feels even more guilty with its extinction.

“I’m sorry, Shea.”

Shea shrugs. “Don’t be. It happens to everyone eventually.”

It does, but his words don’t quite ring true.

“Still, that can’t have been easy.”

“It isn’t. Similar story for you?”

“No, uh, not really.”

Sid pauses and wonders how exactly he’s going to word this. Shea’s told him enough that he can’t back out of telling part of his own story. How much, is the question.

“My family and I had a pretty big falling out.”

It’s an understatement. The last time he saw his family there had been crying, shouting, and broken plates. There’s no burying the memory, especially not the sound of his sister begging him not to leave.

Shea frowns. “You don’t speak to them at all?”

“No, not since I moved here.”

“But you’ve been here for years.” Shea’s eyebrows are drawn together like he’s missing a piece of a puzzle. Which Sid guess he is, in this case.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t imagine what would be so bad you wouldn’t talk to your family for-”

“I’m gay,” Sid cuts him off, leaving Shea’s mouth slightly ajar but silent. “My parents were always very progressive in public, so I thought I could tell them. It turns out they’re fine with people being gay, as long as it’s not their son. Things got ugly, so I left.”

They’re quiet for a moment, and Sid picks at the skin around his thumb.

“They might have changed their minds. All these years, Sid,” Shea says softly. Sid doesn’t get a moment to enjoy the fact they glazed over the whole ‘I’m gay’ thing like it’s nothing, because talking about his family still burns in a way he can’t overlook.

“Maybe one day. But I’m happy right now and I don’t want to invite pain back into my life.”

“What’s easier isn’t always best.”

He can feel the pressure building behind his ears at the words. A familiar feeling.

“Not talking to my family is easy?”

“I’m not saying it’s easy, just easier than addressing the problem. If you don’t look at a crumbling wall, it doesn’t go away. And if you look away for long enough, it might come down on top of you.”

Sid shakes his head at the analogy.

“Shea, I know you’re trying to be helpful or whatever but you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Shea looks at him in a way he hasn’t seen before – it’s vulnerable and it cuts right through him. They’re silent and still once more, and for the first time it feels like the connection between them is a fragile thing.

“Maybe I don’t,” Shea finally says and leans back. “I’ve got a bottle of whiskey in one of the cupboards. Seems like the time for it, if that sounds good.”

“That definitely sounds good.”

Shea gets up to go rummage in the cupboards and Sid is left on the floor to gather everything back into the cardboard. He hesitates before putting the carved box back inside. Looking at Shea’s carvings, he’s always been able to imagine his hands working, big and careful. He thinks of them older, more weather-worn but with the skill those years add.

It makes him ache in ways he doesn’t fully understand. When they start drinking, it’s too easy for him to lose all caution.

-

There’s light beaming down on his face and he’s cold on one side, colder than he can remember waking up for a while. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes a couple of times before realization floods him and he feels wide awake.

“Oh no.. _Shea_\- Wake up, Shea.” Sid shakes his shoulder where the other man is slumped against him on the couch, fast asleep.

“Sid?” Shea mumbles, but starts to pull himself upright.

“I need to get to the inn, I can’t believe I fell asleep.” Sid glances around the room like his possessions might be scattered throughout it, but his coat and shoes are by the door where he left them. He’s halfway through tying his boots by the time Shea’s awake enough to twist around on the couch and look at him.

“Guess we did get through that bottle in the end,” Shea says, and he sounds as rough as Sid feels.

“Pretty good bet, buddy.”

“Wait,” Shea says when he has his hand on the door handle. Sid freezes as he approaches him.

Shea puts his arms heavily around his shoulders and pulls him in to his chest. He’s warm and smells faintly of pines. Sid lets go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“I don’t like arguing with you,” Shea says softly.

“I don’t either. Some things are just tough to talk about,“ Sid says, muffled by Shea’s torso.

“Didn’t want you to leave without settling it. Now go, before Sully has you working doubles.”

The walk back into the village is subdued. The air is crisp and the sky is the clearest it’s been in a week, but the pounding of his head and thoughts from last night won’t let him enjoy it. He’s grateful Shea thought to clear things before he left or he can’t imagine how much worse he would feel.

He knows Shea was badgering him out of a kind place, that there wasn’t malicious intent. But it’s a wound that will never stop being raw, and he doesn’t think it’s unusual to want to avoid the subject. The revelation about Shea’s parents weighs on him heavy too. He feels a sense of guilt but can’t entirely put his finger on why.

-

“Yours is completely lopsided,” Sid says with glee.

“It’s just ‘cause your head is lopsided, so it looks that way.”

Sid rolls his eyes and focuses on centering the crude twig nose on his snowman – Shea didn’t have any carrots so sadly he had to abandon the traditional design. Also the eyes are slightly off, but definitely not _lopsided_. Nor is his own head, for that matter.

Shea had looked skeptical when he suggested they take advantage of the snow, but soon warmed up to the idea when Sid suggested the real reason for Shea’s reluctance was poor snowman-building skills. It was petty, but it did the trick. Besides, it may be their last chance, what with spring rapidly approaching.

“I swear I used to be good at building these,” Sid mutters when they stand back to look at their two misshapen blobs of snow. The main error had come when Sid tried packing snow around the middle of the upper and lower balls of snow – instead of making it look cohesive, it now looks like it’s recovering from surgery. But it had been entertaining watching Shea try to lift the upper body onto his snowman, only for it to disintegrate.

“Nice. Now I get to see Lumpy and Wonky every time I look out the window.”

It doesn’t take long after the failed snowmen attempt for the snide comments to devolve into a snowball fight. Shea darts back toward the cabin to use one of the walls as cover, which Sid isn’t entirely sure is fair – he’s stuck with the snowmen to give him protection, and one of Shea’s snowballs knocks half the head off one of them early on.

He scoops snow and lobs it at Shea as fast as he can, resulting more often in a spray of snow in Shea’s general direction than a snowball. Shea’s throws are more spaced out, and he discovers why when one hits his shin.

“That _hurts_,” Sid yells at him, because apparently Shea is packing the snow down so hard into the ball they’re more akin to ice than light, fluffy snowballs. He only gets a menacing grin from the side of the cabin in reply, and the knowledge there’s probably more of those on the way.

He bides his time, crouches low behind Lumpy and Wonky. He sticks out his elbow at the side when he sees Shea peeking, and Shea goes straight into the trap. Shea launches another iceball toward him, but Sid’s already running toward the side of the cabin.

Shea grabs at the snow beside him like he has enough time to make another iceball, but Sid came prepared – his snowballs might be loosely packed, but they’ll do the job at close range.

He starts throwing them and Shea tackles him to the ground, crushing half of the snowballs between them. Sid’s screaming so loud that if there were anyone around, they’d think he was being murdered.

Shea grabs a handful of snow and rubs it against his face – an act Sid hasn’t had to endure since childhood. He retaliates by grabbing a handful himself, but Shea rolls them before he can bring it up to return the favor. And then they’re face to face, looking into each other’s eyes and it would be so easy-

Shea pulls away, pulls his body off of Sid completely.

“Let’s go warm up,” Shea says. Sid can’t get himself to move for a moment.

He tells himself he has nothing to be ashamed of, that he didn’t push forward and try to kiss him and neither did Shea. The fact he had _wanted_ to is nothing new to him, after all, just a confirmation of the feelings that have been lurking around.

But it still burns at him, from a place where logic is unwelcome and thoughts of how Shea’s lips on his might feel won’t leave him alone. There was something dark and warm in Shea’s eyes before the moment was lost that makes him pine for _what if_.

“The tea is brewing,” Shea calls from the kitchenette while Sid sits down on the floorboards to pull his boots off. His body is tired and becoming heavier by the minute, in the kind of way that would mean a nap that turns into waking up delirious. He’s relieved it’s his day off, that he won’t be on his feet all evening after this.

When he makes it onto the couch, he sinks into the cushions a little too easily.

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” Sid says as Shea sits down in the armchair nearby. He feels a pang of hurt, seeing him sit down further away than he usually would. Like he could read Sid’s intentions when they were in the snow, and is reminding him of the boundaries.

“No guarantees. If I fall asleep, who’s left to keep you awake?” Shea mumbles as he leans forward to put the two mugs of tea on the coffee table. Sid looks at the mug longingly, but suddenly the effort to lean forward and grab it seems insurmountable.

“I had a crick in my neck for like a week after I last fell asleep here,” Sid says, and regrets it a little. He doesn’t want to bring that night up, wants to bury it deep and move past it, lest Shea suddenly decides to continue the debate.

“If you fall asleep this time, try laying down,” Shea says with amusement.

“I’m gonna try to resist,” Sid says half-heartedly. He knows he won’t. It’s too warm and cozy in the cabin, his limbs are difficult to move already.

Shea tells him stories passed down through so many generations he wonders if there are a hundred versions of them in the area. Shea’s a natural storyteller to where Sid can picture the stars reflecting off the sea, stillwater devoured by a great wave before it wipes out a boat full of young men, bar one.

“But where did the wave come from?” Sid asks, and Shea hums in response.

“There’s no telling. Perhaps there was a storm, or an earthquake. The story back then is the earth was annoyed by a crab, pushed its hand up to swat at it and caused the wave.”

But Shea had mentioned earlier that the earth didn’t know humans even lived on it, in the local folklore. _Huh_.

Sid wonders out loud how apparently the earth wouldn’t be able to feel humans crawling all over it like ants, but could _feel a crab annoying it_ and they’re off into a childish discussion which culminates in Shea’s deep, booming laughter bouncing off the cabin walls. He promises to find him a book one of the locals published on some of the old beliefs.

“Why don’t we believe in that stuff anymore?” Sid asks when the laughter dies off. Because there must be some comfort in imagining the earth as a creature, its whims the cause of both devastation and joy. Like a giant cat, knocking things off of shelves just because it can.

“I like to believe some of it. I mean, I can’t believe all of it, with the marsh demons and such, but.. I like to think I’ll see the people I’ve lost again,” Shea says. Sid glances over at him.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. I’d love to see my grandpa again,” Sid says softly.

The mood’s turned somber and Shea looks like he’s about to open up that little bit more, something Sid hasn’t pushed for. He’s never been good at handling other people’s sadness, but he finds he wants to try, for Shea. He waits.

“When dad died, I-” Shea trails off for a moment, clasps and unclasps his hands in his lap. “People kept offering me their condolences, and I hated that. Then after a while they expected me to just move on, and that was even worse. I know it’s backwards, to want to be more alone when the problem _is_ being alone. But I felt like I couldn’t breathe around other people. I felt defective for not being able to snap out of it.”

“My grandma always said there’s no right way to grieve,” Sid says quietly.

Shea laughs, short and hollow. “They said that here too. But then after a while it’s an inconvenience. Grief changed me and I couldn’t be the person I was before.”

“Who were you before?”

“Outgoing. Fun. Not loud, but not as quiet as I am now. Didn’t get stuck in my own head so much.”

Sid makes a thoughtful noise. “I can’t really imagine it.”

“I don’t want you to. Everyone that knew me before wants me to be that person again.”

And Sid gets that, in a roundabout way.

“I like you the way you are,” Sid says, because it’s true. It’s the only thing he can offer. Shea gives him a weak smile.

“I like you too, Sid. Thank you for listening to me ramble.”

“Hey, it kept me from going to sleep,” Sid jokes.

He makes it down the forest path and into the village just as the last of the light is fading. His brain is working on a headache, a feeling he’s starting to associate with making this walk. He doesn’t know what to start obsessing over first – the almost-kiss or Shea’s grief. Part of him knows there’s no solution to the second one, that it’s not his problem to solve and grief isn’t something you can cure. The first one makes him too embarrassed to think of at all.

He’s restless that night, slipping in and out of dreams about giant crabs sitting on trawlers.

-

Sid tries his hand at carving, under the careful supervision of Shea. It only takes an hour before he abandons the work, goes to dig into one of the books on fauna on Shea’s bookcase instead while Shea continues. It’s slow going, and he couldn’t visualize the end product enough for it not to feel infinite. He lays back on the couch with the book, and almost drops it on his face when Shea breaks the silence from his spot in the armchair.

“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Sid turns his head to the side to look at him.

“I realized the other day, I haven’t been following my own advice,” Shea says as he continues carving, his eyes not leaving the grain.

“How so?”

“I told you that you can’t just not address things, but that’s what I’ve been doing, for years.”

He grips the book tighter. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“With your grief?”

“Partially. I’ve avoided dealing with it, but it hasn’t gone away. I haven’t stepped foot in my parents’ house in all that time. I keep waiting to feel ready, but I don’t think that moment will ever come.”

Sid pulls himself up to a seated position.

“I need to say this before I back out,” Shea says. He lets out a deep sigh before he barrels on. “I want to make a deal with you.”

“A deal?”

“If I step foot back in that place, will you write a letter to your parents?”

_Huh_. Sid tightens his fists by instinct.

“Why do you want me to do that?”

Shea shrugs. “Progress. Bribing myself into actually going there. This way we both have to face our fears. You can say no, if you want.”

Sid closes his eyes for a moment, trying to work out the tangle of feelings he has at the thought. None of them are helpful, or even rational, but if he can help Shea moving on.. Even if the idea of writing a letter leaves a painful knot in his stomach, he knows Shea will have the same thing at the thought of his parents’ house.

“Alright.”

-

The outer walls might once have been powder-blue, but the place has seen better days. Life by the coast is harsh, and the wind and moisture will take its toll. One of the shutters is laying in the tufts of grass under the window, while even more grass is growing up in the gutters. It’s the exact opposite of the carefully maintained exterior of Shea’s house.

“I’ve walked past this place a million times, I just thought it was vacant,” Sid says after a while of looking at the house in near silence. Shea is standing beside him and had been unusually quiet on the walk into the village – they’d met up where the path begins, and it had been odd to see Shea within the village boundaries, other than the lone time he made it to the pub.

“It is.”

“You know what I mean,” Sid says gently.

The inside is pretty, albeit covered in dust and the occasional cobweb. He can see faint marks on the wall of the entryway where Shea must have taken a painting, or maybe that creepy map.

Sid looks over at Shea, who’s barely moved since he let the door close behind them.

“You good?”

Shea nods and Sid knows he’s not. But the whole point of this isn’t to rush him, or make him feel weird for any reaction he might have. Sid’s content to stand in the entryway, as long as Shea wants.

It must be rough to see the house in this state, uninhabited and uncared for. He thinks of how Shea had lived there while building the cabin, but hadn’t been back since the day that was complete. The way it looked last time is probably a strong contrast to how it looks now.

“The, uh-,” Shea clears his throat before continuing, “living room is on the left there, if you want to see it first.”

Sid wasn’t going to be surprised if they just stood in the entryway for a few minutes before leaving, but he’s grateful to see more. He steps into the living room.

The room is off-white, with dark wooden beams along the ceiling from which there are so many cobwebs hanging that Sid almost turns back around. There are bookcases not unlike the one at Shea’s cabin, a fireplace, two couches which have seen better days, and a whole host of things which have Sid’s nosiness begging for free rein. 

“It’s pretty,” Sid says. There’s the skeleton of what the room once was beneath the dust and cobwebs; he can almost see what it may have looked like when it was still full of life.

Shea steps into the doorframe, hands fiddling with his gloves rather than putting them in his pocket.

“What used to be there?” Sid points at a spot on the wall where the sun has bleached the wallpaper surrounding it, leaving a perfect square.

“You know the painting of the two ships entering port? It’s by the bedroom door. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever come back here, so I took the stuff that I knew I wanted to keep.”

Sid sits himself on the couch and a plume of dust emanates. He sighs, but only once the cloud disappears.

“Could have predicted that one,” Shea says with a smile that doesn’t quite ring true.

“Would you mind me opening some windows?” Sid asks, because really, the cloud of dust only further outlined how stuffy the air is.

“Sure. If you want to do it in other rooms, one of the windows in the kitchen is jammed.”

Sid starts opening windows and feels less like he’s drowning in a pool of dust. Shea’s right – the window above the sink in the kitchen doesn’t open, no matter how hard he pushes on the pane. He hesitates by the stairs.

He’s curious. He wants to see the whole place, gather what little imprints of Shea’s life before he moved into the forest he can. But there’s also the fact he’s here for moral support, and that doesn’t work as well if he just abandons Shea in the living room to satisfy his nosiness.

“I opened the ones in the kitchen, hall and bathroom by the stairs. Remind me to close them when we go, I know I’m going to forget.”

-

“It’s freezing in here,” Sid complains despite being the one to open the windows. It’s been hours, and far longer than Sid had anticipated their first visit lasting.

“Can’t make a fire until I get a good look up the chimney. There’s more coats in the entryway if you want to double up,” Shea suggests.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, mostly because he can only imagine what kind of spiders might be lurking in the cupboard under the stairs.

“It doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would. I kinda had a mental block about coming back here,” Shea says quietly.

“It’s a really nice place. Bet you have a lot of good memories here.”

Shea shows him old photos, and Sid loses himself in the way the skin around Shea’s eyes crinkles. It’s perhaps the happiest he’s ever seen him and he can’t help smiling just as broad.

He leaves to continue his nosiness at the bookcase after a while – there’s fiction here, at least, even _Hucklebuddy What_ as Shea had called it. Either Shea’s father or mother was quite the reader, and it had extended beyond hunting manuals and survival skills. He’s considering the merits of asking Shea to borrow a few of them when he spots something familiar.

“Are these your dads’?” Sid asks when he reaches the display case, full of carved boxes and figurines. Sid hasn’t noticed any figurines at Shea’s cabin, but he reminds himself to look closer next time he’s there.

Shea nods from his space sitting on the floorboards with the photo albums, but makes no move to come look at the display case too.

“He made them for my mom, his friends, me, anyone really. But the most beautiful ones were always for her. She loved cranes, so he’d try to work them into the carving, in some way. Even after she was gone.”

Sid leans over to look closer at the boxes – he can spot the crane in a few of them, with its long neck sticking out from the reeds. While Shea tends to carve with a woodland theme, his dad seems to have focused on lakes and the sea.

“You didn’t want to keep these ones?”

“I tried to only bring the things that wouldn’t hurt me too much.”

“That makes sense,” Sid says. He feels useless that he can’t say anything else, something helpful.

Eventually Shea stands up and brushes the dust off himself.

“I’m not sure I could get rid of much of this. Or what I’m going to do with this place, to be honest. I thought it might be clear to me, once I was here again. I’m leaning toward keeping the place, though. It’d be weird to see someone else living here.”

They agree to come back again next week, to see if they can make a dent in the dust situation. _Top to bottom_ is the best way to clean, Sully’s always telling him. Except he’s pretty sure the tops of the cabinets in the pub haven’t been touched since the second they were complete. Shea breaks the silence when they’re pushing the last of the boxes back into place.

“Sid.”

“Yes?” Sid responds as he tries to rub his face with his sleeve – he has an itchy nose, but his gloves are caked in dust at this point.

“Thank you for coming with me. It means a lot.”

“If it means a lot, maybe I don’t have to write that letter,” Sid jokes, because any chance to worm his way out of that one is worth a shot.

“Not a chance,” Shea says with a smile. And Sid hadn’t thought so.

-

Shea’s face is serious, but the warmth is still there in his eyes. Sid focuses on that, tries to let it calm him.

“It’s a good letter.”

They’re sitting around the little kitchen table in Shea’s cabin, fireplace crackling in the background as Sid had put ink to paper. His nausea had steadily grown throughout the writing, and did little to disappear while he watched Shea then it back. He’d tried to keep it to the point as much as he could – explain that he was hurt by what happened and doesn’t understand why they couldn’t accept him when they accepted others. He wants them to know he’s happy with the life he’s created for himself. Especially if they still resent him.

“What if they don’t respond, though?” Sid says. It’s the thought that’s been at the front of his mind since he agreed to write the letter – can he handle pouring his heart onto paper and then having it ignored?

“If they don’t respond, then you can wipe your hands of them and never wonder ‘what if’.” Shea reaches across the table to squeeze his hand, but Sid knows it won’t be that simple.

“Should just throw it in the fire,” Sid mumbles.

“No, you won’t,” Shea says and Sid knows he’s going to have to send the letter. Crazed thoughts may enter his head of throwing it away the second he gets back to the village, but he couldn’t lie to Shea. At least no lie bigger than telling him that Carole-Lyne only gave him five cookies to bring over to the cabin.

“It’ll be good for you. It might not feel like it now, but it will be some kind of closure.”

“What if it’s not the closure I want, though? If I don’t reach out, then I can just.. Pretend like it would have been different.”

“Do you really want to pretend your family wants to make things right and are unable to contact you?” Shea frowns.

“Yeah, okay, you’re right,” Sid says begrudgingly. It doesn’t make a pretty mental image, his parents being in distress, even if it’s their own making.

“Did I tell you about the fox that often has kits near here?” Shea changes the subject, because he’s learnt to read Sid in a surprisingly short amount of time.

-

They’re on yet another of their forest outings when they come across a den which Shea informs him is very likely to contain hibernating bears.Sid practically drags Shea by the arm away from the area, and Shea shoots him a grin.

“I thought you wanted to pick one up?”

“I changed my mind,” Sid says. His heart is racing.

“You’ve got snow on your nose,” Shea informs him, and brings the hand of the arm Sid doesn’t have a death-grip on up to brush it away.

“You have a whole snowbank in your beard,” Sid retorts.

Shea makes a disgruntled noise and brushes it away with the back of his glove.

“Beard’s annoying in this temperature.”

“I like it,” Sid says, and he doesn’t think he imagines the way Shea is fighting to contain a smile. Sid’s not usually a fan of beards, but Shea’s is the perfect length – just long enough that it accentuates his jawline, but short enough that it doesn’t conceal it. If it wasn’t creepy and probably unwelcome, Sid would like to run his hand through it.

“You ever tried to grow one?” Shea asks in a tone which tells Sid he’s already homed in on what his beard-growing skills look like. He’s never been able to grow much more than whiskers himself, and would shave those off quickly out of a combination of shame and chirping from those around him.

“Let’s not go down that road,” Sid says hastily and Shea laughs.

He only loosens his grip on Shea’s arm once they’re far away from the den and Shea’s stooping down to look at a log. They discuss whether Shea should get a dog while he examines it, mostly featuring Sid insisting he does and Shea trying to rein him back in.

“Shea?” Sid asks after some time, when Shea’s cut the wood and preparing to head back to the cabin. He’d been hoping there’d be a natural time to bring up this question, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.

Shea glances up from loading the sled. “Yes?”

“You don’t have to answer, but.. Why’s Pascal different?”

Shea’s eyebrows furrow and Sid can’t blame him. “What do you mean?”

“You said you pushed everyone away, pretty much. From what I can tell, Pascal’s the only one you kept in your life. Was just wondering why. Sorry to ask out of the blue, but I’ve been thinking about it since you said it.”

Shea puts his gloved hand on the log to steady himself as he stands back up. He looks at Sid with an expression that reminds him of the first time they met, lost on the path.

“Pascal may be nosy, but he treated me like normal, even right after I lost my dad. He didn’t avoid me, but he didn’t treat me like glass either. I needed that. I still do.”

Sid hums. He’s always thought he’d act like that with someone experiencing grief, but the truth is he has no idea what he’d do. He can sympathize with the ones who stay away, or speak in hushed tones like the grieving person is about to break. He’d be terrified of saying the wrong thing, and probably do the wrong thing as a result. Maybe it’s good, that he didn’t know Shea years ago. He might have ended up being pushed away too.

It’s like Shea can sense his thoughts. He brings the glove with snow and a little bit of bark down on his shoulder, squeezes.

They hurry to fill the rest of the sled before the remaining light dips below the roof of the trees.

-

When he starts his shift at the pub and sees Jack already sitting at the bar, he’s relieved. It means a voice of reason among the drunken yells. He’s resigned himself to that not being the case tonight, but when Sid’s cleaning up John’s _second_ spilled beer of the evening, Jack slides onto the barstool in front of him.

“Figured I’d better show my pretty face around here,” he says with a grin.

“Ugh, please don’t,” Sid responds, but can’t stop himself from returning the smile.

“What’re you up to these days?”

Sid shrugs. “Work, sleep, repeat. How about you?”

He feels a little bad making it sound like that’s all he’s doing – work has felt like a smaller slice of his life than usual recently. But Jack, as reasonable as he may be, holds the champion title in his ability to chirp Sid. If he mentions his trips into the forest, if he mentions _Shea_, he’ll seize it and the torment will be endless.

“Sounds like fun,” Jack says, “It’s the same as usual for me-“

“Sid,” Ryan yells from across the pub, and Sid clenches his fists.

He throws the cloth down and walks over, preparing himself for whatever bizarre trivia he wants Sid’s opinion on this time.

He leers at Sid as he approaches, and Sid notices that his usual drinking buddies have already left. He doesn’t blame them – the more beers Ryan washes down, the more unbearable he becomes. If it wasn’t Sid’s job to be around drunk people, he’d love to leave too.

“How about on one of your nights off, I buy you a beer?” Ryan slurs, and his arm is immediately pulling on him until he’s close enough to wind it around Sid’s waist.

“I don’t want to come to the pub on my nights off,” Sid says, because it’s true. He’d much prefer visiting friends than stepping foot in the place when he’s not being paid.

“Well, how about we take some beers up the cliff? Or we could go back to my place,” Ryan says with a tone that’s so obvious on the last part Sid struggles not to laugh.

Ryan’s one of those people living in the forest that he really doesn’t get. He’s in the pub from opening to closing almost every day, so he’s not one for solitude. He buys all his food from others, so he doesn’t hunt. And Sid knows he bought the cabin instead of inherited, because he _never shuts up about it_.

“Unfortunately, I can’t,” Sid manages when he composes himself.

“Because of your boyfriend?” Ryan asks.

“No- What boyfriend?” Sid says after a second.

“Weber. He was staring at you in here the other day and got all pissy with me on the path the day after.”

“Pissy with you?”

“Yeah, jealous type. You want to steer clear of those, Sid, _trust me_,” Ryan says and taps his nose, and Sid reminds himself to start spacing out his refills. Sully doesn’t believe in cutting people off, but there’s a line of drunkenness in the pub that Sid’s keen to avoid stepping over.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Ryan makes an exaggerated nodding motion. “Good choice, good choice. Now about having a drink at my place.”

Sid does not agree to have a drink at Ryan’s place. He does, however, make his way down the path the moment his shift is over. There’s a slither of the waxing crescent moon above the trees, and thousands of stars starting to peek through. It’s darker than he’s ever ventured into the forest before, but his anger drives him forward.

He’s barely inside and hitting the light switch before Shea flings open the bedroom door. He’s disheveled, wearing his base thermal layer and had obviously been asleep. Still, he’s grasping a heavy candlestick holder like a weapon, right until they make eye contact and he lowers it.

“Sid-“

“It’s not your place to interfere with my life.”

Shea looks confused, like his brain is trying to wake up and switch from _home intruder_ mode.

“Is this about Ryan?“

“Yes, it’s about Ryan. I told you not to interfere and you did anyway.”

Shea holds his hands up, candlestick holder and all. “You _can’t_ interfere. I can.”

“If I’m creating drama between customers, I’ll be fired, Shea. There’s plenty of people around here that can tend a bar.”

“I just said he shouldn’t be touching you. I didn’t threaten him, I stated a fact. I’m sorry if you feel I’m interfering, but I’m not sorry for saying it.”

“You crossed a line and you don’t even see that-”

It goes in circles – the angrier Sid gets, the more Shea digs his heels in. The worst part is that he understands where Shea’s coming from, but that only makes him more frustrated. Because it’s worse arguing with someone where you can’t deny that they’re right, but it’s the _principle_.

When he storms out, he knows it’s petty, but he shouldn’t have come here at this time of night in the first place. Should have predicted there would be no resolution, when they’re both as stubborn as each other.

And it’s only a few minutes before he hears quick footsteps behind him in the snow. Sid doesn’t turn his head and keeps walking. The footsteps are too heavy to be the wolf.

Shea catches up to him, a mish-mash of winter gear thrown onto his body in a haste.

“Sid, stop. You’ll get lost.”

Sid scoffs. “I’ve been down this path a million times, I won’t get lost.”

“Please let me walk you home. For my peace of mind. We can argue more about this some other time, I just want to know you got home okay. You mean so much to me.”

Sid clenches his jaw out of reflex, but the tension is already dissipating. He’s powerless in the face of that request, in that tone of voice.

The walk is subdued, the argument like an invisible buffer between them, but put on pause.

“It’s so pretty at night,” Sid says after a while, because he can’t not. He has the urge to continue being petty and give Shea the silent treatment, but the sky is open above them, stretching wide and bright above the treetops. It took him by surprise when he first moved here, away from the light pollution and where a _constellation_ is something you see by looking up, not onto a page.

“When it’s warmer, I’ll take you camping. There are fields further to the north where you can almost see the whole sky.”

Shea looks at him like he half expects him to say _no_, like this argument is somehow severe enough to end the friendship they’ve built. But even in the midst of his frustration, Sid can’t find it in himself to be that dramatic.

“I’d like that.”

-

He enters Shea’s cabin without knocking, but it’s been months since he’d bothered announcing his arrival. Shea is never surprised, anyway.

“They sent me a letter,” he says while fumbling his boots off.

“Your parents?” He can see Shea’s eyebrows knit together from his seat on the couch.

“Yeah. I don’t know if I can handle reading it, Shea.”

“It’ll be fine. Come, sit by the fire.”

Shea guides him over to the couch, and Sid feels like he’s an overdramatic bundle of nerves. But the letter under his coat feels like it’s white-hot, burning through his skin the longer he lets it be unopened. Shea grabs his coat from him and then he feels naked, nothing separating him from the envelope with the familiar return address.

Shea sits back down and looks at him. “The worst response would be no response, remember saying that?”

Sid shrugs – he remembers saying it, but it seems so insignificant when faced with the possibility of reading his parents’ words after so long. He carefully opens the envelope, unable to put it off any longer but also unable to destroy it.

It’s his mother’s handwriting. Cursive and careful, not a misspelling in sight.

There’s silence for a while as he reads. When he reaches the end, he passes the paper over to Shea. He doesn’t really cry a lot, but his eyes are watery and he swallows a couple of times to keep it at bay. It feels stupid, to react like this to a letter. But while he read he could hear his mother’s voice in his head, reading her words aloud as if she were with him.

In the same way he’d poured his heart onto the letter he sent, he feels like he received some of his parents’. It’s raw, full of regret. ‘_An overreaction._ _Unforgivable_.’ There’s an apology in there, but there’s also a focus on what they can do to make it right. They want him to _come home_, a thought that’s too large to be digested.

It’s everything he hoped, but years too late. Instead it feels like he’s replaced one pain with another.

“Wow,” Shea says after a while.

“Yeah.” Sid rubs his hands over his eyes, leans back into the couch cushions.

“So, are you, uh, thinking of doing it?”

“What part?”

“Going back to Belhaven.”

“I don’t know if-,” Sid starts and then trails off. The idea hasn’t crossed his mind since the day he left the place, always so certain he’d be met with alienation and no longer welcome in the home of his childhood.

Shea reaches out a hand to hold his knee. He can feel the weight of it, a gentle reminder that he’s not alone in any of this, not anymore. And there’s something pushing to the front of his mind, refusing to wait another moment.

“If I left, would you miss me?”

It feels like a selfish question to ask, and a little spark of shame within his chest tells him so. But he also feels like he needs to know the answer, that there’s another question there that determines everything.

“I would miss you. But I want you to be happy.” Shea isn’t meeting his eyes, looking at his hand on Sid’s knee instead. The words still ring true, extinguish that spark of shame within him and replaces it with something fragile and warm.

“I am happy. Here, I mean. In Lanrowe. With you.”

That brings his eyes up. It’s true – he’s been happy since he came here, but happiest since meeting Shea. He can’t wait to tell him things that happen throughout the day, or hear what kind of project he’s working on in the forest. The thought of not having him around makes him feel _empty_. He can’t fully comprehend how he didn’t feel there was something missing before, when Shea wasn’t there. It kills him a little that it could all come crashing down, if he told him how he felt.

“They suggested a visit, if I’m not ready to come back. Would you be interested in coming along?”

“I couldn’t intrude on you and your parents reunion,” Shea says after a moment.

Sid makes a thoughtful noise. “No, but you could do some looking around the town while I meet up with them, initially. Then once the emotional stuff is over you could meet them.”

“I’m not sure about that, Sid.”

“Think about it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Shea says and there’s a glint in his eye once more.

-

In the spring, the ice begins to thaw and they can sit outside on the porch, mugs of coffee in hand to ward off the last of the cold. Sid feels at peace. The birds are singing and it seems like forever since the sun touched his skin. Soon it will be warm enough to take another ill-advised trip to Elmer’s Lake to get sunburnt. Maybe he can rope Shea into sharing his agony, this year.

They’ve been planning the trip to visit his parents for a while. He managed to lure Shea into coming through a series of bargains – Shea won’t be present for the first while of Sid seeing his parents again, and he’ll stay in the inn nearby during the visit. He also gets to drag Sid around to different stores that sell woodwork, because Sid had been foolish enough to describe some of the unusual carving you tend to find in Belhaven. But if it means he gets to travel with Shea, it’s worth it.

It’s only a few weeks out, now, and he feels like bringing Shea will be bringing some of his new life into his old. A reminder that he’s not the man that left those streets behind, that leaving was the right decision and has allowed him to grow.

The nervousness is still there, but it’s less, when he knows Shea will be with him. Shea has his back no matter what.

He takes a drag of his coffee, looking out toward the tree line where the path back toward the village begins.

“I made something for you,” Shea says, and Sid looks over at him with surprise. Shea doesn’t quite meet his eyes. His fingers are tapping off-beat on the side of his mug.

“You did?”

“I thought about giving it you for Valentine’s Day, but.. It feels right now. I’ll go get it.”

Sid takes another long sip of his coffee, trying not to speculate on what that _something_ is, before setting the mug down when Shea comes back outside.

“It might be too much,” Shea says. He hesitates before handing it over, a rectangle wrapped in brown paper. It’s heavy and Sid’s breath catches in his throat when he pulls the paper open.

It’s the most intricately carved box he’s seen yet. A forest, framed with more leaves along the edges, along with a cursive _Sidney_. There’s the trident path through the snow, the right fork still a little fainter than the rest. And his chest feels tight when he sees the wolf peering from the trees in the carving.

“It’s beautiful, Shea. I can’t believe you made this for me.”

When he looks up again, Shea’s eyes are dark and fixed on him. He’s not surprised when Shea leans in, brushes their lips together for just a moment before recoiling.

“I’m sorry-“

“No, don’t apologize,” Sid says softly, “This has been a long time coming, huh?”

“I wasn’t sure if- I understand if you don’t feel the same. You mean a lot to me and I don’t want to ruin things between us by misunderstanding.”

“You’re not misunderstanding anything,” Sid says and pushes their lips together once more. It’s gentle and cautious, even when their lips part and Shea brings his hand up to rest at the nape of his neck. Sid’s world narrows to Shea’s kiss and the sound of the trees.

“You’re sure about this?” Shea asks when they finally part again.

“Very. Are you?”

“I haven’t been with a man before, but.. I can’t deny how I feel about you.”

Shea has a smile on his face as he reaches over to hold his hand. It’s warmer than Sid’s, and as they go back to looking out toward the forest, Sid can’t help smiling too.

-

Sid seems to spend every waking moment at Shea’s cabin, and after a week of nurturing this new development, Shea asks if he’ll stay the night.

If it had to be, he’d be okay with their relationship staying where it is, kissing and cuddling. But there’s a very large part of him that is itching for more, for Shea to show him how strong he is in a different context. He’s had to take care of himself every night upon returning to his room, just as the thought of their bodies pressed together and what he _wishes_ would happen next.

There’s a tension between them today, manifesting itself in sly little looks and brushing against each other just a moment longer than normal. Even their kisses hold promises of more.

They sit outside on the bench while Shea carves. He’s down to the detail work on the lid of a box, so Sid’s careful not to make any sudden noises or movements. He reads for a little while in the local mythology book Shea had tracked down for him – it turns out the living earth myth is only the tip of the iceberg for some of the stories that came out of this region. Once he finishes a story where the county treasurer has _obviously_ stolen county money and then blamed it on a leprechaun, he can’t handle any more and closes the book.

He's content to listen to the rustling of the trees and the scratching noise of Shea’s work until it gets too cold to stay outside, and they go inside to make dinner.

They sit together at the kitchen table and Sid hooks his ankles around Shea’s leg, because that’s something he can do now. He doesn’t have to _wish_, he can start to show his affection. Shea smiles at him in a way that makes him think he’s on the same page. It’s the little things.

When the plates are cleared, Sid glances toward the bedroom door.

“Stay?” Shea says, and Sid doesn’t even consider it a question. Of course, he’ll stay.

Shea brushes his fingers over his shoulder and against his neck, lets them stay there for a second before leading the way into the one place in the cabin he hasn’t seen.

In their months of friendship, Sid has never been into Shea’s bedroom. He’s never had any reason to.

The décor is sparse, a few paintings on the wall that are the kind you inherit. The sole window looks out toward the thicket behind the cabin where the trees are just starting to brush off their sleep.

His eyes fall to the centerpiece of the room - the bed is only marginally larger than a double, the frame hewn and smoothed in a way which Shea must have either paid a pretty penny for or, more likely, made himself. The blankets covering it are more familiar to him, the kind of woven pattern you see in every cabin for hundreds of miles.

It’s perfectly Shea.

They lay side by side, exchanging lazy kisses with no urgency until Shea wedges his leg between Sid’s thighs. The contact has blood pulsing toward his groin, tugging at Shea’s arm until he can twist them both so Shea’s on top of him.

“You’re pushy,” Shea pulls away to say, but the light is dancing in his eyes like he’s enjoying the thought.

“Kiss me again,” Sid manages before Shea does just that.

Sid ends up having to be pushy, to progress things along. There’s no doubt in his mind that Shea would lay on the bed and makeout for hours, if he could. And he plans on investigating that theory at some other point, but right now months of caution has gone out the window, and all Sid’s patience with it.

He can’t help but make a soft noise of appreciation when Shea’s shirt comes off. In shameful moments in his bed at night, he’d tried to imagine what Shea might look like, and he’s impressed to see he hadn’t even come close to the real thing. Woodcutting is a truly underappreciated art.

Shea sees him looking and smirks. Sid rolls his eyes. Some things never change.

“As much as I like looking at your chest,” Sid mumbles as he pulls at the rest of his clothes.

They resume kissing once naked, and Shea seems cautious about trailing his fingers over Sid’s skin. Sid is in turn trying his best not to keep looking _down_, where Shea’s dick is hard and thick and jutting out, not to obsess over how much he wants to touch it. Now they’ve got their clothes off he thinks it’s best to slow down a little again, wait for Shea to initiate it going further, since he’s never been with a man before. It’s killing him, but he doesn’t want to ruin everything.

“Okay?” Shea asks, his finger wet with oil and just resting at Sid’s hole.

“Do it,” Sid responds.

“Tell me if it hurts,” Shea whispers. Sid nods, because that’s all he’s capable of doing right now.

Shea pushes the first finger inside and keeps it still for a moment. His eyes are burned onto Sid’s face, so intense Sid can barely look at him when he’s this vulnerable. After a moment, he nods again, and Shea begins to add another finger.

Once they work up to three fingers, Shea gets a good pace going, slow and steady and drawing out soft noises from Sid on every flex of his knuckles.

“Please,” Sid manages.

Shea’s pushing his legs up toward his chest and slotting between them, eyes fixed on Sid’s. He’s inching in, stretching him in a way that aches and he never wants to stop.

Shea rests his head on Sid’s shoulder for a moment, breathing shakily into his neck. All Sid can do is run his hands up and down his back, feels the strength beneath his skin until the burning stops and he’s urging Shea into motion.

They exchange kisses while it’s slow and sweet, the drag of Shea’s dick inside him so much and yet gentle. Shea seems determined not to hurt him, and it’s only once Sid whispers _faster_ that he increases, like he’d just been waiting for the go-ahead. Sid works his hand between them to play with himself, too desperate to delay any longer.

Shea’s got a hard grip on his shoulders as he fucks into him, the kisses they share more open-mouthed and sloppy when they’re not just concentrating on the frantic pull of their bodies against each other. The slapping of skin on skin fills the room and the window’s fogging up, and Sid’s not sure how much more he can take, he’s biting his lip and scrunching his face-

“You feel so-“ Shea groans, but Sid doesn’t hear the rest because with a final stroke of his dick, he’s spilling between them, gasping while his whole body tenses and releases.

Shea huffs out a breath at the sight and shifts into a relentless pace, knocking the bedframe against the wall from his efforts while Sid locks his legs around him. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds after that before Shea is breathing _Sid_ and coming deep inside of him.

Shea manages a shaky kiss to his lips before rolling off of him, and they catch their breath, both content to lay in the heat of the room and feel the buzz dissipating from their skin. Sid reaches up to wipe a hand across his face, but is otherwise too tired to move.

Once the afterglow fades enough for his mind to clear, Sid breaks the silence.

“How long have you felt this way?” he asks, because he can’t not.

“It kind of crept up on me, but I knew for sure when we were at Duper’s. You were holding Evan and it just clicked. When did you know?”

Sid hums. “I guess we were around the same time then. Knew there had to be some reason I was volunteering to lug firewood around.”

Shea laughs. “I guess that’s true. And there was me thinking you were getting into the forest lifestyle.”

“I was. I mean, I am. It’s just useful to have some extra motivators,” Sid says with a satisfied smile.

Shea wets a washcloth and cleans them off – it’s freezing and it makes Sid recoil, but he knows it has to be done. It’s worth it in the end, when Shea gets back under the covers and presses his warm body against him.

“I’ve thought about this a few times, at the inn,” Sid says once he’s nestled himself against Shea’s side, hand resting on his chest.

“Laying like this? Or the part before?” Shea says and continues brushing his fingers up and down Sid’s back. They’ll have to pull one of the heavier blankets up and around them, when their body heat starts to fall. But for now it’s bliss.

“Both,” Sid admits, “but especially laying like this.”

“Me too. Also, both,” Shea says, then adds, “you’ve got beard burn on your neck.”

Sid pulls his hand from Shea’s chest to where he can feel the skin on his neck is irritated. He groans.

“That’s going to be fun to explain.”

“Maybe it’ll make Ryan leave you alone,” Shea grumbles and Sid rolls his eyes.

“Don’t start that again.”

“Fine. But I still think he’s an ass.”

“Shea,” Sid warns because now is _not the time_.

“I love you,” he says, wisely.

“I love you too,” Sid responds with a smile. Shea brushes a strand of hair from his forehead before pressing a kiss to it.

He must have drifted off, because he wakes up with cold hands and a warm back from where Shea has adhered himself to his skin. It takes him a moment to remember why there’s a warm body next to him, and his heart beats faster when it all sinks back in. It takes some work to detach himself from Shea’s arms, intent on keeping ahold of him no matter how much he wriggles. But he needs to grab one of the heavier blankets from the chair in the corner if he’s going to have any hope of falling back to sleep.

His mind would usually be going to a mile a minute, when he wakes up in the middle of the night. He’d worry about the pub, the future, those around him. But this time his brain feels pleasantly _off_ as he maneuvers the heavy blanket onto the bed. There’s still plenty that could go wrong in his life, but he finds he doesn’t care, if Shea’s by his side.

The moon is bright enough that the remains of the snow that hasn’t melted shines in the dark – he can just make out the collapsed figures of Wonky and Lumpy. Then he looks out toward the tree line, tries to imagine a pair of glowing yellow eyes in the dark. He shakes his head, and slides back beneath the sheets and into Shea’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read or well-researched, so apologies if there are mistakes! I hope this was somewhat enjoyable


End file.
